Does Amazon.com discriminate against self-published books?

You'd think that Amazon.com would be doing everything it can to encourage self-publishing authors to sell their titles on Amazon's Web site. Particularly with niche titles, Amazon could be cutting brick-and-mortar bookstores out of the action completely. But this isn't happening because there's no communications channel between Amazon and self publishers.

For example, my new self-published title, "The Home-Based Bookstore" (ISBN 0977240606) is selling better on Barnes & Noble than it is on Amazon. Why? Well, for one thing, Barnes & Noble displays an image of my cover art. And I don't even know where they got it. Amazon? Fuggitaboutit. I've written to the company at least a dozen times, and the answer I receive is that the publisher must upload the cover art. I keep telling them, BUT I AM THE PUBLISHER!!!!!!! but I don't think they're hearing me. The image still isn't there.

Barnes and Noble discounts my title $2 (out of their own pocket) for their club members, another reason it's selling faster over there.

At one time, I did have my cover art displayed on Amazon. Since I'm a pro-merchant seller at Amazon, I created the product page for my book myself. And I uploaded the cover art, table of contents, and index for my book, and it displayed just fine. Until my book was available for distribution through Lightning Source and Ingram Book Co. Then Amazon wiped out all the images.

Why did Amazon delete all the product information for my book? Here's the response I received after several inquiries:

Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 04:53:46 -0800
From: "Amazon.com"
Subject: Your Amazon.com Inquiry
X-Originating-IP: [207.171.160.44]
To: steve_delivers@verizon.net
Bounces-to: RealTimeEmail+CS-CUSTOMER_REPLY-J37mzV5AlT@bounces.amazon.com
X-AMAZON-TRACK: notification
X-AMAZON-MAIL-RELAY-TYPE: notification

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We receive information automatically from our main distributors which will update the detail page of a title listed using the Create a Product Detail Page feature. We apologize that this has negatively affected your title, "The Home-Based Bookstore" (ISBN 0977240606).

Even though you submitted an image to us when you created the page for this title, the image has now been removed from our web site. If you would like an image to appear online you have several options, which I have outlined below.

If you are the exclusive rights holder (including copyright and marketing/promotion rights) of the book, you may wish to enroll your title in the Search Inside the Book Program. To learn more or to sign-up, please review our online information:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/506483

If you are the publisher of this item, you can review information about submitting an image as a publisher here:

http://www.amazon.com/publishers

Alternatively, your distributor can also submit a new image to us.

You may also want to consider our customer image upload feature which enables you to share your own images with other customers. You can find more information at:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-images/customer-image-guidelines.html/

While we do not currently offer a feature which would allow you to submit an image to our catalog department, the images you submit using this new feature will be available on the detail page for the item.

I hope this information is helpful.

Best regards,
Doug S.
http://www.amazon.com/used

No Doug, the information was not helpful. I had completed all the steps you recommend before I even wrote to you. And my cover image is still not displayed.

I submitted my book to the "Inside the Book" weeks ago, with no apparent action on Amazon's part. Is this because it's a self-published book? I'm beginning to wonder.

Here's the kicker for all this: My book is about how to operate a business on Amazon.com. And because Amazon is asleep at the wheel, people are buying it at Barnes & Noble. Go figure.

It's not like I have no relationship with Amazon. I've sold over $1 million in books on their Marketplace platform, and paid them 15 percent on each sale. You'd think I'd be able to get their attention.

Currently there's a low-resolution image of my cover on Amazon's site, it's what they call a "customer image." Any customer can upload one. It doesn't show in search results. And I suppose any other customer could knock the picture of my cover off the display by uploading the cover of a Playboy magazine.